02 July 2026, India – Standard Chartered today announced that it has processed a remittance payment under the new retail payments scheme from Swift. In a world-first, Westpac (Australia) sent a transaction to India via Standard Chartered via this scheme. Leveraging its advanced capabilities in India, Standard Chartered enabled near real-time credit to the beneficiary bank, demonstrating a major leap in the country’s payment ecosystem.

This transaction was completed in 37 seconds end-to-end. This reiterates the Bank’s ability to complete an end-to-end transaction with any participating bank in India in record time using Swift rails. As well as the fastest possible settlement time, Swift’s retail payments scheme delivers benefits to both senders and receivers of international payments, including end-to-end transparency so that a payment can be tracked, upfront certainty of cost with no hidden fees, and no surprise FX deductions, so that the amount that is sent is exactly what lands in the beneficiary’s bank account.

At an event hosted by Swift in collaboration with the Indian Banks’ Association, focused on modernising payments, P D Singh, CEO, India & South Asia, Standard Chartered was felicitated to mark the achievement as the first bank in India to process a payment under the Swift scheme.

P D Singh, CEO, India & South Asia, at Standard Chartered, said, “Our cross-border and network capabilities have been the cornerstones of the Bank’s sharp focus across key markets including India. It is indeed a moment of great pride for Standard Chartered, India, to be globally the first bank to process a payment within seconds under Swift’s retail payment scheme. We’re enabling people all over the world to send money back to India just as easily as they can send money domestically.

With this initiative they will get a truly best-in-class payments experience backed by the security of the banking ecosystem, and we’re delighted to be working with the industry to make it possible,” Singh added.

Kiran Shetty, Chief Executive of Swift India and South Asia, said, “This demonstrates the power of Swift’s cutting-edge capabilities; leveraging its existing global rails to drive real transformation in cross-border payments. For India, the world’s largest recipient of remittances, where they play a significant role in GDP, this evolution is particularly critical.

For many Indian businesses receiving international payments, the cost of a transaction often extends beyond the amount transferred. Banks typically apply a 1.5-3.5% spread above the mid-market foreign exchange (FX) rate on inward remittances, while SWIFT transfers can take between 2 to 5 business days to settle. Hidden charges, intermediary bank fees and compliance-related delays can further impact settlement timelines, cash flow and the final amount businesses receive.

As more Indian businesses expand into global markets, understanding these payment challenges has become increasingly important. Through #XflowDash, Xflow aims to raise awareness of these common payment friction points by presenting them through an interactive browser game. 

At the centre of the campaign is Xflow Dash, an arcade-style infinite runner game where players navigate obstacles such as hidden fees, poor FX rates, compliance delays, SWIFT holds and intermediary bank charges while collecting Xflow Shields, representing protection against these common payment frictions.

Instead of simply talking about cross-border payment challenges, Xflow Dash recreates them through gameplay. The campaign gives businesses a chance to experience familiar payment hurdles in an interactive way, helping raise awareness of the hidden costs and delays that can impact international payment collections. 

The campaign was supported by a coordinated social media activation across X and LinkedIn under the hashtag #XflowDash. On 29 June 2026, the hashtag ranked No. 1 in India’s Business & Finance category on X, generating more than 2,700 mentions and a reach of 781.9K, while remaining on the trending list for over 4 hours. The campaign also saw organic participation from founders, fintech professionals and members of the startup ecosystem, who shared gameplay scores, screenshots and reactions across social media. Influencers like Ali Solanki, with over 47k followers, also shared the video on their channel, appreciating the initiative.

Commenting on the initiative, Ashwin Bhatnagar, CEO & Co-founder, Xflow, said: “Payments infrastructure isn’t a category that easily gets people excited, but the challenges businesses face are very real. Hidden fees, payment delays and poor FX rates are common experiences for companies receiving international payments. With Xflow Dash, we wanted to present these challenges in a way that was simple and easy to relate to. If businesses recognise these issues while playing the game and begin thinking differently about how international payments work, we’ve achieved what we set out to do.”

With #XflowDash, Xflow is using gamification as part of its customer awareness efforts to encourage greater understanding of the hidden costs associated with cross-border payments. By combining an interactive browser game with a social media campaign, the initiative aims to make conversations around international payments more accessible while encouraging businesses to better understand the challenges involved in collecting payments globally.